The Criminal Investigation Department, (CID) of the Ghana Police Service, has arrested two Bulgarian nationals for their alleged involvement in Automated Machine (ATM) fraud.

They are Nikolay Petev Nedyalkov, 24 and Petar Petrov Yardanov, 33.

They were said to have caused series of unauthorised ATM withdrawals from their victim’s account using the ‘gh-link platform.’

The Director-General of CID, Commissioner of Police, (COP) Prosper Agblor, said on December 7, 2015 the Prudential Bank Ghana informed the police that it had received complaints from some customers about series of unauthorised ATM withdrawals from their accounts using the ‘gh-link platform’.

He said investigations revealed that the data on customers’ ATM cards were obtained at the ATM facility at Korle-Bu, adding that a visit to the ATM facility also revealed that most of the ATMs had no Close Circuit Television (CCT) cameras installed, and therefore, suspects could not be identified.

COP Agblor said on June 6, this year, at about 4:30pm, a staff of Prudential Bank, alerted the bank of an unauthorised withdrawal of an amount of GH¢140.00 from his account through the ATM at the bank’s head office.

He said a check on the CCT camera footage revealed that a young white man on a motor cycle was behind the unauthorised withdrawal and about two hours later the suspect, Nedyalknov was spotted with his motorcycle at the head office of the ATM.

He said the suspect was apprehended and handed over to the police.

COP Agblor said a search on him revealed 24 ATM cards four pink sticker sheets with numbers written on them, suspected to be the corresponding pin codes of the ATM cards, six ATM printout receipts including one with a withdrawal amount of GH¢140.00 and cash of GH¢280.00.

He said a search conducted in the house of Nedyalkov revealed; a Honda motor cycle, two laptops, which had a cloning software installed, one hard drive, two routers, 10 dismantled CCT cameras, a projector, electrical tools, a piece of paper containing numbers suspected to be ATM pin codes, and a suspected cloned ATM card similar to the ones captured by the bank’s ATM

COP Agblor said Yordanov, bolted when the police search team got to his residence at East Legon, but was arrested on June 8, from his hideout at Dzorwulu upon intelligence reports gathered.

“Both suspects have been remanded to police custody to facilitate police investigations. Efforts are being made to get an interpreter to enable the investigative team interrogate and obtain statements from them,” he said.

He said other banks have reported that their ATMs had been compromised using cloned cards.

COP Agblor said is outfit would carry out investigation to identify the perpetrators and called on other banks whose customers may have falled victim to ATM fraud or theft within the past years to contact the cyber crime unit of the CID headquarters for assistance.